1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a system and method of accessing one or more incident databases, and more particularly, to a system and method of standardizing data content of one or more incident databases for query and comparative usage.
2. Background Description
Historical product performance and risk assessment is important information for decision making, for example, to identify positive or negative product performance by segments of society, age groups, geographic areas, or the like. If a product is found to have poor performance, a manufacturer may elect not to introduce the item, or perhaps, choose to redesign the product to increase its performance. Alternatively, product performance of a device by a manufacturer may demonstrate the manufacture's care in designing the device, or to show that the manufacturer has considered performance prior to its introduction into the marketplace. These product performances may also be used to educate the consumer, manufacturer, distributor and/or retailer about a product or class of products. This assessment of product performance may also be used to ensure the quality of the products also devised to avoid and/or minimize adverse customer and public relations.
Additionally, historical incident data may be useful for other reasons and used by different types of users such as researchers, professionals, institutions, consumers, or the like, for trend analysis, decision making of various types, or commercial advantage. However, in order to evaluate products, historical data, for example, injury and fatality data must be accessible for products.
Data associated with a wide breadth of products are currently tracked by several entities. For example, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). NEISS provides a product coding system (typically a four-digit code) for a wide variety of products ranging from clothing, equipment, and appliances, to toys, etc. Other exemplary databases include American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), Children's Hospital Choking Database (CHD), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The Department for Trade & Industry (DTI) (UK), The Office for National Statistics (ONS) (UK), and Health Canada (HC). Each of these databases tracks essential historical data that may be used to evaluate products.
However, each of these databases typically implements data formatting and coding in a unique manner. For example, product codes may be different, product characteristics that are tracked may be different, and historical events may be characterized by different aspects. Further, each of these databases typically resides in a different geographic location and is maintained by a different entity. These disparities between these exemplary databases create a user barrier for effectively accessing and interpreting the data contained in the databases. That is, it may very difficult, if not impossible, to analyze the data across these databases in a meaningful way. For example, it is very difficult to effectively obtain a standardized and unified representation of equivalent or pertinent data contained in any combination of these databases due to the varying formats and coding. In fact, one database may contain certain products, while others may not which only exasperates the problem. Thus, providing a standardized coding from different databases, which does not currently exist can provide great benefits to the accumulation and analysis of data across different databases. The invention overcomes one or more of the above problems.